Here Before
by boschette
Summary: A one-part JoeyPacey relationship songfic. Sorry, not in the mood for a summary. But please read and review anyway! …


Disclaimer: Big shock: I don't own any Dawson's Creek characters or the song "Promise Me This" by Pancho's Lament.

_Is that the sound of knocking at my window_

_Lord I'm trying, trying to let you in_

_but the mirror stares me like a stranger_

_I'm learning how to begin again_

Joey:

When the door slammed behind him and I had caught my breath, I went straight to the wine rack and opened a bottle of Merlot we'd been saving for a special occasion. I poured myself one glass, and then another, and then another. It didn't even taste very good. I drank the whole bottle as I sat in front of the window wall and stared out at the city lights that had lost the power and mystique they'd once held for me.

Once upon a time, I would have called Jen and asked her to meet me somewhere to talk. Or just poured out everything to her over the phone. She was the best listener I've ever known, the kind of person who wouldn't hesitate to offer advice if she had it or sympathy if she didn't. She had been gone for almost a year. I felt a stab of sorrow that was sharp and hot and sour, all at the same time.

I tried not to wonder where he'd gone. That wouldn't do me any good. If he'd gone out to drown his troubles at a bar, then he wasn't much worse off than I was now, with the wine swimming around in my head and tasting bright and bitter on my lips. If he'd gone out to give himself some space and time to calm down, then we were both better off. He'd be back, I told myself. Of course he would.

It's funny. When he first came here and we found each other again, I really thought our storms were all in the past. We'd weathered a lot, after all, over a ridiculously long stretch of years. But I guess that was naïve of me. Our unraveling was happening in stages too slow to grasp in the moment, and the worst part of all was that most of it was my fault. I'd never admit that to him, but I knew it. I had known all along that the city wasn't for him, that it wasn't in him. I knew that from the moment he told me he would follow me anywhere.

He was drowning here. And I would suffocate there.

Love's got a weird way of breaking people. It holds you together and keeps you aware. It paralyzes you so that you get a front-row seat to witness the unraveling with a clarity that makes everything unbearable. On second thought ... it's not funny at all.

_I thought of you, my faith began to wander_

_It woke me up in the middle of the night_

_I've so many places I can run to_

_Let's not run away this time._

Pacey:

Walking out in the middle of an argument-turned-shouting-match isn't really my m.o., but there you go. I walked out. And I did it more because I was scared than because I was angry. In her blazing eyes I saw the prospect of my life without her again; in her words I heard the sound of empty years ahead filled with the gut-wrenching knowledge that losing her would mean losing everything that was worth anything.

My life without Joey Potter is a thought that makes me feel sick to my stomach and out of control, like I'm free-falling from one of the skyscrapers in this godforsaken city.

But I was drowning here. This city was eating me alive, it was turning me inside-out. I was depending on Joey to keep our heads above water, and I hated myself for that. She deserved so much more than I was giving her. And I _could_ give it to her, if she would just come back with me. Back there, I would be able to give her all she needed.

That was the problem, though. Back there, _she_ would be the one who couldn't breathe.

_Promise me this_

_You will never understand me_

_Promise me this_

_You will always always_

_Hold me like you hold me now_

_You will hold me like you're holding me now_

_Promise me this..._

Joey:

As the wine warmed my insides and the darkness pressed in all around me, I let my mind wander back eleven months into the past. Jen had been buried on a Wednesday, and I had returned to New York on Friday with my heart as full of regret as it was of grief. The memory that was burned like an afterimage of the sun onto the back of my eyelids was Pacey's expression as I got into the cab that would take me away from Capeside once again. I saw his face every time I closed my eyes. The incomprehension. The incompleteness. The hurt thinly masked by anger, because anger is always easier, even if it isn't real.

Christopher hadn't yet moved out of the loft, and I wasn't ready to see him anyway. So I had walked around the city, determined to lose myself there as I had done so many times before, allowing faces to blur and colors to bleed together and pain to dull amid the chaotic babble of traffic and pedestrians and the tangle of buildings piercing the sky.

It didn't work this time, though. I walked for hours like a person with a purpose, a place to go and people to go there with, and the farther I walked, the worse I felt. Jen. Pacey. Pacey and Jen. Their faces wouldn't leave me. I had never felt so alone in my entire life.

I ended up at the park across the street from the loft building I'd shared for almost three years with a man I never really loved. There I collapsed onto a bench in the shadows and put my face in my hands and cried.

Pacey:

The park bench was empty, so I sat down on it. Joey's bench.

It didn't seem possible that less than a year ago I had stepped out of a taxi in front of her apartment and found her here. I'd been trying to gather my courage to go up and knock on her door and hand her my heart to keep or to crush, for better or for worse. I had wandered into the welcoming shadows of this park to gather my thoughts before making that terrifying journey up to her loft. When I saw her sitting there, I couldn't believe my eyes. I felt paralyzed. Paralyzed by the absolute intensity of my love for this woman and by the fear that if she forced me away this time, it might very well be the end of us.

My lips felt numb when I opened them and spoke her name.

She looked up with streaming eyes, and before she said a word, I knew that our future hinged on this moment. Time seemed to stand still for a moment. And then she stood up and I pulled her into my arms and we clung to each other as she cried and I fought tooth and nail not to.

"I love you, Pacey," she whispered against my chest as I pressed my lips into the smooth silk of her hair.

For a moment I couldn't respond. The force of her words hit me so hard they might have driven me to my knees if I hadn't had her in my arms. I took her by the shoulders and held her away so that she was forced to look into my eyes. "Do you mean that?" I asked her in a choked voice that didn't sound familiar to my own ears.

"I mean that," she said, searching my face almost fearfully, as if she were uncertain of what my reaction would be. God, how could she not know what my reaction would be? I remember wondering. It seemed impossible that she didn't feel the surge of the greatest happiness I've ever known as it coursed through my body.

I closed my eyes for a moment, incapable of doing anything else. And then I pulled her back to me and our lips came together in the most extraordinary kiss of either of our lives. At last, when we moved apart, I found the words. "I love you, Joey," I said.

And she had smiled through her tears.

Joey:

It began to rain the moment I stepped out of our building and started across the street. It was a cold rain, but light, and the streets seem to sizzle with a reality that was strangely sharper than usual. That could have been the wine, though.

I hadn't intended to go chasing after him. A lifetime of running away had conditioned me to run in the opposite direction of what I wanted most of the time. But as I sat there staring out at the now-mundane lights of a city that had lost its magic for me, I knew that I had to find him and tell him what he had once told me: that I would go to the ends of the earth for him. I would follow him anywhere. Anywhere.

I knew where he would be, of course. There wasn't a trace of surprise on his face when I touched his shoulder and he turned around to look at me. His eyes fixed on mine and I melted the way I always have in his presence.

"What took you so long?" he asked. His lips weren't smiling, but his eyes were.

I took his hand and pulled him up from the bench, my gaze never leaving his. He wrapped his arms around me in that way that always made me feel so safe, and I felt the bitterness of the fight drain out of both of us at the same time.

"I love you, Pacey Witter," I said.

He smiled into the top of my head. I felt it. "I love you, Joey Potter."

Standing in the rain in the darkness in the embrace of the man I loved, I knew that we could call anyplace in the world our home if we were together. We were going to be okay.

_Promise me this_

_You will never understand me_

_Promise me this_

You will always always 

_Hold me like you hold me now_

_You will hold me like you're holding me now_

_You will hold me like you're holding me now_

_Promise me this_

_Promise me this_

_Promise me this...._


End file.
